Best of the URL Shorteners for Firefox

Comments (3) · March 19, 2008 at 6:48 am · Firefox Usability

One fad that has caught on in the past few years is the art of shortening those really long URLs, as you would find in a search result or on Amazon for a product listing. When you try to share just the long link, it often gets broken or just will not fit in the message you are sending. That is where these tools come in handy to have.

• TinyUrl Creator
• URL Shortener
• Tiny.pl
• URLKick
• Jmp2.net Toolbar

The winner (and best URL link shortener) would have to be Shrinkify.

It not only shrinks your URLs via Firefox, Shrinkify also gives you a pretty interface when doing so. Out of all the URL shrinking extensions, this one is the best, hands down.

Shrinkify Your URLs

Comments (2) · February 26, 2008 at 12:57 pm · Firefox Usability

There are a lot of URL shortener services out there.  They take that really super long URL from a place like Amazon.com and make it into something that is easy to cut and paste into a blog post or a Twitter even.  Shrinkify is another awesome answer to this problem that gives you that ability to shrink URLs right from Firefox.

Here is a little more about the Shrinkify extension from the developers:

The Shinkify Firefox extension makes long, unwieldy URLs shorter with the Shrinkify.com web service. Using either a toolbar button, right-click menu item, or tools menu item, you can submit your current url to the Shrinkify web service. The shrinkified URL will then be copied into your clipboard.

Also might be worth noting that the Shrinkify extension came in 8th in this year’s extend Firefox competition.  So if you are looking for a simple way to shrink your URLs built right into the browser, Shrinkify is your best solution.

Minimize Your Firefox Menus

Comments (3) · May 28, 2007 at 9:38 am · Firefox Settings, Firefox Usability

Is your menu bar taking up too much wasted space? Well you could hide it, shrink it, or just not use it. How can you get that done? Thankfully others have run into this same issue before and there are a slew of Firefox extensions to help you minimize your Firefox menus.

Tiny Menu - Replace the standard menu bar with a tiny menu popup.

Hide Menubar - Supports to hide your Mainmenu Toolbar automatically, you can press the ALT key to show it temporarily.

Personal Menu - With the Personal Menu, you can hide the menus in Menus Toolbar (even the Menus Toolbar), and design your own menu with just few settings.

Menu Editor - Rearrange or remove menuitems from the main context menu (right-click menu) and main menubar (File Edit View etc.)

MenuX - MenuX was designed for laptop/tablet use where maximum screen realestate is desired. Adds the ability to collapse any toolbar.

Have another one that deserves to be on the list? Drop in a comment and let us all know about it.

Feature Request: Minimize to Taskbar

Comments off · February 21, 2007 at 5:10 am · Firefox Usability, Most Wanted

Well I got my first request, and I am going to do my best to get it answered. Chris in Georgia writes:

When I’m forced to use IE, I use a ’skin’ called Greenbrowser. It includes a great feature that allows me to hotkey it to minimized, using “CTRL `” I’ve searched and searched for something like it for Firefox (including searching on Firefox Facts). I’ve also searched for the ability to set up custom hotkeys in FF, to no avail. Do you know if this exists? If not, where could I put this as an extension suggestion for those out there who do extensions?

Yes, this can be done with the Firefox extension MinimizeToTray. Install this into your browser and you will be able to send Firefox down to the system tray to keep it from taking up task bar space. How can you bring it back up? Well you could use your mouse and click on the icon or you could use the keyboard combo Ctrl+Shift+M.

Have another feature request or suggestion you’d like to see built into Firefox by default or added by an extension? Let me know about it and I’ll feature it on Firefox Facts and maybe even find you a solution to your problem (if you have one).

Shrink Your Toolbar Area

Comments off · November 3, 2006 at 4:23 am · Firefox Hacks

Want to have more room for browsing, and less for all those extensions and toolbars you have been installing for Firefox? Here is a good start at getting your browser a little neater.

You’re a power web surfer, so of course you use Firefox. But while the Firefox team has done a great job of creating an interface that accommodates most web surfers, you’re not most surfers. There are bunch of unnecessary buttons, menus and doodads in the Firefox control area (the “chrome”) that you don’t need, taking up space you could be using to see and do more with your web pages and tabs.

+ Read More About Consolidating Firefox’s Chrome!